


knock first

by followsrabbit



Category: SKAM (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-15 20:39:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11238765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/followsrabbit/pseuds/followsrabbit
Summary: “I think Chris just asked me to be his girlfriend.”In retrospect, Eva probably should have knocked before bursting into Noora’s bedroom with that particular news bulletin.





	knock first

“I think Chris just asked me to be his girlfriend.”     

In retrospect, Eva probably could have led with _hello_ or _what’s up_ before bursting into Noora’s bedroom with that particular news bulletin. In hindsight, she probably should have waited until she’d actually opened the door and crossed the threshold. And she should maybe (definitely) have knocked first.

It’s just that she’s gotten out of the habit of knocking with Noora over the past few months. For most of those months, Noora didn’t even have her own door for anyone to knock on.

“Oh.” Eva hasn’t even crossed the threshold when she freezes. She still has one foot in the hallway, her steps wilting as she takes in Noora and William curled up together on her bed, a paperback between them. “Hi.”

With William back, she’ll have to get back into it. Stat.

Lips twitching but face otherwise unreadable, William raises one hand in a kind of salute. Noora shuffles out of his lap, a small laugh and smile—her smiles have looked so much easier in the past week than they have in the last six plus months—growing on her mouth as she pushes a stray lock of hair out of her face. “Hi.”

If this were any other day, Eva would smirk or raise an eyebrow or otherwise tease Noora for lying around in bed with her boyfriend well into the afternoon. And she does try to smirk, and she does try to raise her eyebrows, but—

_'We’re not a couple.’ ‘Yet.’_

But she can’t get Chris’s stupid voice out of her head.

So instead she turns to William and says, “Pretend you didn’t hear that.”

Still propped against one of Noora’s bright pillows, William lifts a palm from Noora's thigh and raises both hands in deadpan surrender. “I heard nothing." And yet Eva still wishes she'd knocked. “But,” he adds, “if I had--”

“William,” Noora interrupts, combing her fingers through his hair. “Aren’t you thirsty?”

He looks between the two of them, mutters something about making hot cocoa—which Eva doesn’t really understand, since it’s _June_ , but won't question if it gets him out of the room—and then kisses Noora long and hard. Then he climbs out of bed. Then he presses his lips to Noora's again, softer this time, when she tugs him back by the sleeve.

Eva wouldn't call herself an extremely private person, but she’s not stupid enough to talk about Chris while his best friend is sitting in the room either. God _._ She might as well just text the whole conversation to him.

She closes the door behind her once William finally manages to pull himself away and out into the hallway. (It’s no wonder Noora was MIA for days if their every separation is such a production. Disgustingly cute.)

Immediately after the door shuts, Noora urges Eva closer, sits up straighter. “Chris did _what_?” she asks.

Nearly falling onto Noora’s bed, Eva looks up helplessly at the ceiling. “He introduced himself to my mom,” she says, dazed and amused and disbelieving. “Wearing a _blanket. My_ blanket.”

Blonde hair brushes Noora’s nude lips as she shakes her head.

“And—and he said,” she can barely even get the words out, it’s too ridiculous and perfect, and he can’t have been serious, “he said that he wants us to be together. For me to be his girlfriend. Can you believe that?”

Her gaze drips back down to meet Noora’s. It’s not a throwaway question.

Blinking, Noora presses her lips together and then says, “But you’ve been hooking up forever now, haven’t you?”

“Yes. Hooking up.” Hooking up is what Chris does—he flirts and he kisses and he fucks, and then he does it all again with another girl, no matter what pretty words he might spin for his girlfriend. Eva should know. She’s _been_ the other girl. “But just that. It’s never been anything, like, serious.”

Noora doesn’t look like she shares Eva’s furious bewilderment, though. Her forehead creases with contemplation. “Because you don’t want it to be?”

“I don’t want to be with someone who could cheat on me,” Eva says. The easy answer. There’s more to it than that—she doesn’t want to be with someone who could consume her again, the way Jonas did. She doesn’t want her heart broken, and she certainly doesn’t want her identity stamped out by a boy’s name. She’s only just found herself. What if becoming _Chris Schistad’s girlfriend_ erases all the independence she’s gained since first year in one stroke?

“No.” A slow nod. “You shouldn’t be with him if you can’t trust him.”

 _Finally_. The advice she’d come to Noora for, the validation. Except… “I like him though.” Except she wishes she could trust him. If she weren’t already lying flat on Noora’s mattress, she’d fall back on it. "Fuck."

“I know.”

Skepticism narrows Eva’s eyes. “You know?”

Heaving an exaggerated sigh, Noora drags herself down to the foot of the bed to flop down beside her. “Eva. It’s not like you and Chris have ever been a secret. You’re always together at parties.”

“Yes. Partying. Not--” Eva waves a hand to encompass all the relationship minutia that she utterly failed at navigating with Jonas. “--doing _together,_ together things.”

Rubbing a palm across Eva’s shoulder, Noora gives her a crooked smile. “I’m not the best person to look for cynicism from right now.”

“Too ridiculously in love?”

“Hey.” This time, when Noora touches her, it’s a soft push. “Yes. And I want all my friends to be just as happy, guy or no guy.”

Eva squints back to the ceiling. She’s happy the way things are—hanging out and hooking up with Chris without all the drama of commitment. If they don’t commit, then he can’t cheat, then she can’t fail. But…

“He does make me happy,” she admits. She likes when he sleeps over, and she likes when her phone lights up with the most _random_ texts from him at three a.m. She likes when he climbs through her bedroom window to crash her Netflix nights, and she likes when he ignores other girls to murmur _awful_ pick-up lines in her ear on nights out. And the way he _smells_ —Eva bites her lip. She really, really likes the way he smells; the way it lingers on her pillows even after he’s left. “Fuck.”

Noora rubs her shoulder again.

* * *

In the kitchen, William grabs his buzzing phone as he waits for the cocoa to heat up.

Four texts from Chris.

_Hey bro_

_So like_

_Back when Noora thought you were a fuckboy and swore she’d never be with you_

_How did you get her to like stop_

William rubs the grin from his mouth.


End file.
